After All

If only your misapprehensions proved
At least as solid as animal flesh,
If not as stone. When you looked up at dusk

From your borrowed table in your rental,
And you sensed in the long shadows creatures
Who resembled you who weren’t quite human,

You could be confident they were agents
In their own right, about their own business,
And actually, mercifully, not quite

Human. Extra-human, slim aliens
Who were not there for the conversation
Or the competition for resources

That full humans would be, you could let them
Drift along in the evening, fairytales
Intent on their own, not-quite human needs.

You would feel so relieved. It’s not all mind,
Not all an endless game in people’s skulls.
There is something, someone else, after all.